Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Ok ebay crap listed.

PM sent to the future Grand Nagus...

Inside the clamshell. Just needs some minor dusting with a brush. I wish all Tek's came apart like this. Gonna be a joy to work on. 

Discrete components might make them big and power hungry, but it sure makes them more practical to work on. Those ceramic tag strips are a work of art. Is the coil of silver solder present?

No, the coil of silver solder is missing but I have some.

[med6753]

The bottom plate is in two pieces to allow the clamshell to open.




Cleaning done. The handle needs replacing but that's low priority for now. I have some left over leather from when I repaired the handles on the Type 535A.

[BravoV]

Just got a private message recently thru Whatsapp from my local industrial complex recyler/salvager company, as I'm their regular addict buying customer. 

Them : Dude, got a new toy here, from our latest recyling from a factory, for you since you're regular, its cheeeepp 
Me : Huh ? Whats that ?
Them : You do like zapping stuffs with high voltage right ? (last time they gave me a NOS 15KV neon sign transformer, as a gift (free) as part of the deal I made)
Me : Hmm .. well .. sort of and depends, but again whats that ?
Them : Its made in Korea, its quite heavy too, about 9kg (20lbs), and you do like heavy electronic stuffs right ?
Me : ... (Oh no, damn it  ... they know my weak heart on these kinda things) ..
Them : It does output 0-5kV, and inside it has a big transformer "AND" a variac, want it ?
Me : ... (reading the words big transformer "AND" variac inside really ignited my interest) ...

... and later on ... after many chats exchanges, photos and bargaining ... for about $27 ... here I am with this thing. 

As usual, don't need it, but at least I've done my obligatory TEA ritual properly, that hopefully made TEA's GOD happy, and getting closer to the promised TEA heaven gate, am I ?   

Tear down photos coming next.

Here we go, tear down of the SMtechno SPT-5010A attached below.

All the manual and even the brochure are in Korean, none in English, had to use Google Translate. 

It has three transformers, the autotransformer (variac), smaller one in the middle for the auxiliary power for the control circuitry and finally the huge one for final step-up.

Any one have any idea what kind of HV plug type needed for the big white HV terminal ? Is that proprietary ?

Basically inside still looks very new and dust free, as it has no vent holes at all.

[BU508A]

I was looking over the circuit for the Type 310A and I noticed something unusual in the -150V reference circuit. C601 consists of three individual dual 15uf cans in parallel for a total effective capacitance of 90uf. This was probably done to achieve very low ESR. As I see it my choices for replacement could be 3/33uf, 2/47uf, or 1/100uf. Given that modern capacitors tend have very low ESR I could probably get away with 1/100uf but I think best compromise would be 2/47uf. What does the group think? A single 100uf or two 47uf?

If you are going after a low ESR in this combo, I'd go with 2x 47µF and one foil cap with something between 100nF and 1µF.

For example this one.

Edit:
Probably a better choice, because this one (example) is rated for higher temperature.

[Specmaster]

Skill with firearms isn't going to be the reason the young lady is in the clip. Yes, the pun was deliberate. No, I don't care if you don't like puns.

The sad part is... the guys that video is made for aren't even looking at her nicely balanced assets... 

mnem
 

I can assure you that her finely balanced assets were the first thing I was aware of, the brain is still active and willing even if the rest of me isn't.

[bd139]

Well that was depressing. Went through the knackered old phones box. Four android handsets, two iphones, two windows phones that aren't even worth £10 each  . Have just slipped them in the bin outside 

[25 CPS]

...I don't know if they got shut down or evicted or the guys that ran it retired and packed it in or what but they were the most child unfriendly nasty old farts you could've found.  No free or cheaply priced scrap bits, no help, no nothing.  They wanted top dollar for junk.  After one or two visits including being sent down by my parents to get a free estimate on having the lawn mower repaired and being turned around when I didn't have the $30 nobody knew that this was going to cost to be estimated but I never went back on my own and my parents got the mower fixed elsewhere.

So what you're saying is... America doesn't have a monopoly on assholes...? 

mnem
"They may not have invented 'asshole'... but they sure are trying to perfect it."

No. America does not have a monopoly on assholes.  Far from.  There are more than enough to go round, that’s for sure.

So my planned analog meter session didn’t happen yesterday since I had to catch up on stuff around the house. One item was the thermostat.  It got cold enough in here on Friday night that I climbed out of bed and went to put the heat on to take the chill off but the thermostat didn’t light up when I tapped the mode button.  When I looked at it more closely after switching a lamp on I saw the display was completely blank so I thought ok, the batteries died, I’m not fighting with this right now and went back to bed since I could tolerate it.  Anyhow, I get to test equipment time last evening and that reminded me of the thermostat so I changed the batteries out and got nothing.  And that’s how the temperature sensing device on the living room wall bumped the antique multimeters down from the top of the list.





I decided to feed in three volts and change from a bench power supply and see if that made a difference but it was completely dead.  Since it’s already broken I decided there’s nothing to lose by getting out a big flat head screwdriver and prying the casing open to take a look around and see if there’s anything obvious like a break in circuit where the battery terminals join the traces on the board, something subject to mechanical wear like that or obviously bulging caps, the works.



Nothing really stood out other than all this surface mount stuff is about as far away from a bimetallic strip and mercury slosh tube as you can get.  The Omron relays were a bit of a surprise as were the test points so I decided to power it back up and see if there was anything on the test points that might shed some light on what happened to this thing.





Five of the test points had the 3.2 V I was feeding in on them and the other was a touch under a volt so I thought about putting a scope on it and I caught a glimpse of the screen when I was rolling it around thinking about how I want to probe that one low test point to see if it’s got a clock pulse train for the digital stuff or something like that and I saw it had come up.  Looking closer I could see the clip leads I had on it for power had slowly wiggles around and had revealed shiny metal on the battery terminals.  They’d finally bit through a pretty thick layer of oxide and were finally making contact with good conducting metal. I honestly thought this was how the metal was finished but it was a thick layer of oxide.  The fix for that’s simple, I got out a small file and cleaned the two terminals off and put the two batteries back in and reassembled the thing.



Back on the wall and back in business.  That was a lot less expensive than buying a replacement.  It’s cheesy of Honeywell to be using a metal that develops surface oxide like this in a location exposed to the air where it eventually builds up enough that not even the voltage from a new set of AA batteries can punch through it even with the mechanical abrasion of removing the old ones and installing new ones.  That’s a good way to make customers throw otherwise good thermostats out and go buy a new one...

[bd139]

Gah similar problem with mine. I have to take it to bits once a year and clean the button contacts 

Nice job and yes lots of people get screwed for that on repairs. Grr.

[PA0PBZ]

Any one have any idea what kind of HV plug type needed for the big white HV terminal ? Is that proprietary ?

Looks like you could fit a banana plug in there 

[mnementh]

All our talk of Earth-That-Was must've shaken loose a few old-timer vibes; while I was out front dismantling my new-to-me-but-well-used lawnmower to give it a good de-grunge-ing, I hear a loud "Ding-Ding...! Ding-Ding...! Ding-Ding...!" like that of a schoolmarm's bell, only moving slowly towards me down the street.

As I see the familiar roofline of an old Chevy Cube-Van moving slowly between parked vehicles, I think to myself "Geez... somebody must REALLY need to sell some ice-cream to be out on a 12 degree day!"; then finally this old beast hove into view.

We talked a few minutes while I scrubbed; he's lived a few blocks over for decades and this is what he does a few days a week now that he's retired. I took a pic and promised to share on social media; not sure if he knows what that means or not, as just that moment a neighbor came up and asked how much to sharpen some conversational kitchen cutlery.

mnem
*certifiable crusty old punk*

[Cerebus]

Until, I don't know, three or four years ago, every now and then around here you'd hear a bell ringing, a cry of RAG-A-B-O-ONE and then a clip-clopping of hooves as a pukka rag and bone man, with a pukka horse and flat bed cart would go around the neighbourhood streets.

(Seriously guys? A spelling checker that can't do 'anodisation' but copes with 'clip-clopping'?)

[med6753]

Gah similar problem with mine. I have to take it to bits once a year and clean the button contacts 

Nice job and yes lots of people get screwed for that on repairs. Grr.

Ditto.....I have to deoxit the contacts on my thermostat too every Fall.

[mnementh]

Until, I don't know, three or four years ago, every now and then around here you'd hear a bell ringing, a cry of RAG-A-B-O-ONE and then a clip-clopping of hooves as a pukka rag and bone man, with a pukka horse and flat bed cart would go around the neighbourhood streets.

(Seriously guys? A spelling checker that can't do 'anodisation' but copes with 'clip-clopping'?)

Pukka...? You mean pooka/púca as in ghostly or like a earth-spirit, or the Irish Chupacabra? Or something else altogether? 

mnem
Words are food for your mind.

[tonyalbus]

This Kunkin KP184 DC Electronic Load 400W/40A/150V is better then i thought...its the REV04 so most of it its fixed just out of the box..
only the 4,2 mm banana's is silly, but easy to replace .. the power switch...yes what can i say...there is even a space and a holder for one in the front on the inside...
and its stupid you need to ask the support department to get the software instead of just downloading it from there website.
but great value for money...with 125,- to your door...in my case shipped within 9 days..

[mansaxel]

Pukka...? You mean pooka/púca as in ghostly or like a earth-spirit, or the Irish Chupacabra? Or something else altogether? 

Welcome to British English.

pukka
adjective UK
UK  /ˈpʌk.ə/ US  /ˈpʌk.ə/
 
old-fashioned
real:
a nice little Italian restaurant serving pukka pizzas and pasta
 
slang
of excellent quality:
I've had some pukka food there.

[Specmaster]

All our talk of Earth-That-Was must've shaken loose a few old-timer vibes; while I was out front dismantling my new-to-me-but-well-used lawnmower to give it a good de-grunge-ing, I hear a loud "Ding-Ding...! Ding-Ding...! Ding-Ding...!" like that of a schoolmarm's bell, only moving slowly towards me down the street.

As I see the familiar roofline of an old Chevy Cube-Van moving slowly between parked vehicles, I think to myself "Geez... somebody must REALLY need to sell some ice-cream to be out on a 12 degree day!"; then finally this old beast hove into view.

We talked a few minutes while I scrubbed; he's lived a few blocks over for decades and this is what he does a few days a week now that he's retired. I took a pic and promised to share on social media; not sure if he knows what that means or not, as just that moment a neighbor came up and asked how much to sharpen some conversational kitchen cutlery.

mnem
*certifiable crusty old punk*

I can remember when the general sharpening man came round on a modified push-bike which had a stand to allow the bike to remain in the upright position while the rider could sit on the saddle and peddle, driving a large grinding wheel  and he would sit there peddling away and holding your garden shears etc to the wheel.

[mnementh]

Yeah; this fellow's truck either has a inverter or PTO/flat belt (one of my old Cube-Vans had this) drive; he pulled across to the opposite curb and immediately started sharpening something after talking to me, but the engine was left idling and I never heard a generator fire up.

Pukka...? You mean pooka/púca as in ghostly or like a earth-spirit, or the Irish Chupacabra? Or something else altogether? 

Welcome to British English.

pukka
adjective UK
UK  /ˈpʌk.ə/ US  /ˈpʌk.ə/
 
old-fashioned
real:
a nice little Italian restaurant serving pukka pizzas and pasta
 
slang
of excellent quality:
I've had some pukka food there.

Thanks... "the old-fashioned" connotative value seems apropos.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

   Grrr... off to Home Despot to buy a SAE socket set for the 9/32" I need to take apart a mower. 

   Got by up here for over a year with nuthin' but metric in my little bag o' dirty tricks, then I move into a place with an actual LAWN. 

mnem
meh.

Proof that metrication is such   

The way they've done it up here, yes it is. 

But the fact that B&S still uses that bastard size on all their stuff is no proof thereof... they'll still be that way when the oceans have boiled away under the heat death of our sun, and men are aught but fairy-tales in stories told by rabbits...

mnem
And there will STILL be outhouses in upstate New York. 

Briggs and Stratton engines may be the most antiquated mechanical devices manufactured today but they run despite all the pinheads who never maintain them.

Tomorrow I have to go out and dig a new hole and move the outhouse.   

Welp... got most of the work done on my crusty-ass mower; turns out under all those Ford-Taurus-inspired plastic covers, this is just a old-school valve-in-block 6.5HP Tecumseh. Well hell. Now I know why it's a oil-leaker (admitted by previous owner as the reason he was selling it for $25 Canadian pesos); these old beasts all have a PCV valve that blows out due to phenolic plastic parts breaking down.

Sometimes one gets lucky tho, and it's just a bad gasket under the PCV; hopefully that's the only leak and the lower mainseal isn't gone as well. Oh, and my "fix everything that goes wrong with a weedeater engine" kit just arrived. 

mnem
*currently practicing another nearly-dead art: resurrecting the threads on a rusty shoulder-bolt with a needle file*

[Cerebus]

Until, I don't know, three or four years ago, every now and then around here you'd hear a bell ringing, a cry of RAG-A-B-O-ONE and then a clip-clopping of hooves as a pukka rag and bone man, with a pukka horse and flat bed cart would go around the neighbourhood streets.

(Seriously guys? A spelling checker that can't do 'anodisation' but copes with 'clip-clopping'?)

Pukka...? You mean pooka/púca as in ghostly or like a earth-spirit, or the Irish Chupacabra? Or something else altogether? 

mnem
Words are food for your mind.

Pukka - the real genuine article. Stolen Adopted from the Hindi पक्का.

[med6753]

Welp... got most of the work done on my crusty-ass mower; turns out under all those Ford-Taurus-inspired plastic covers, this is just a old-school valve-in-block 6.5HP Tecumseh. Well hell. Now I know why it's a oil-leaker (admitted by previous owner as the reason he was selling it for $25 Canadian pesos); these old beasts all have a PCV valve that blows out due to phenolic plastic parts breaking down.

Sometimes one gets lucky tho, and it's just a bad gasket under the PCV; hopefully that's the only leak and the lower mainseal isn't gone as well. Oh, and my "fix everything that goes wrong with a weedeater engine" kit just arrived. 

mnem
*currently practicing another nearly-dead art: resurrecting the threads on a rusty shoulder-bolt with a needle file*

Tecumseh went bust quite a few years ago. Good luck getting parts for it.   

[Saskia]

just returned from a looting shopping trip ...

Saw a Canon 100-400 L IS USM II for a reasonable amount of money, and yes, I drove 500 km for it.

Greetings to Ferenginar.

[25 CPS]

Gah similar problem with mine. I have to take it to bits once a year and clean the button contacts 

Nice job and yes lots of people get screwed for that on repairs. Grr.

Ditto.....I have to deoxit the contacts on my thermostat too every Fall.

Interesting - I did not know that this was a common problem with battery powered thermostats.  This one came with the house and I moved in a bit over seven years ago now, and it's never given me grief outside of having to replace the two AA batteries in it every once in a while.  Lesson learned there.  If it had to happen, this is the time of year for it to happen since there's no need for air conditioning or heat and it's not like the pipes would burst if I couldn't get it working again or replaced quickly.

I can remember when the general sharpening man came round on a modified push-bike which had a stand to allow the bike to remain in the upright position while the rider could sit on the saddle and peddle, driving a large grinding wheel  and he would sit there peddling away and holding your garden shears etc to the wheel.

We used to have elderly gentlemen canvass the neighbourhood with those when I was a kid.  It's been years and years since I've seen one.  They used to push them along up and down the streets and periodically stop and ring a school bell exactly as if recess was over and people would bring out their knives, shears, tools, lawnmower blades etc. to get sharpened.

Tecumseh went bust quite a few years ago. Good luck getting parts for it.   

As is often the case when a vulture operation hedge fund or equity firm buys a going concern, unfortunately.  More often than not it's bad news where the place ends up getting pancaked by the new owners and broken up and blown out, or it gets turned into a long term bank machine by the new owners where cash gets sucked out and everything else languishes as a venerable brand name zombies along like what happened with Tektronix under Danaher.  I haven't followed Ilford/Harman Technology closely but I've been worried about what happens if the private equity owners that bought it a few years ago decide to cash it out.  The commitment to traditional black and white photography products that was made could end at any time.

Speaking of bank machines and vultures, I just got back in from running around town with a guy I play football with.  He's quite a bit younger than I am.  Heck, at my age, most of the guys I play football with except for a handful of others are all quite a bit younger than I am.  Anyways, he has learning disabilities so I try to mentor him whenever I can and we were out doing some stuff and he asked if we could stop by a Money Mart so he could cash a cheque since the banks are all closed.  I suggested he deposit it at the bank machine instead since I don't think he has the bank's app on his phone.  He didn't realize you could do that and asked me to show him how so we stopped at the local branch and I walked him through doing it.  Both of us were pleased about depriving Money Mart of their cheque cashing fee and now he knows how to do it at the machine if he gets another cheque when the branch itself is closed.

I'm back home relaxing with a cup of tea and then it's down to the basement to finally start going over those analogue meters that have been waiting for attention.

[factory]

Just got a private message recently thru Whatsapp from my local industrial complex recyler/salvager company, as I'm their regular addict buying customer. 

Them : Dude, got a new toy here, from our latest recyling from a factory, for you since you're regular, its cheeeepp 
Me : Huh ? Whats that ?
Them : You do like zapping stuffs with high voltage right ? (last time they gave me a NOS 15KV neon sign transformer, as a gift (free) as part of the deal I made)
Me : Hmm .. well .. sort of and depends, but again whats that ?
Them : Its made in Korea, its quite heavy too, about 9kg (20lbs), and you do like heavy electronic stuffs right ?
Me : ... (Oh no, damn it  ... they know my weak heart on these kinda things) ..
Them : It does output 0-5kV, and inside it has a big transformer "AND" a variac, want it ?
Me : ... (reading the words big transformer "AND" variac inside really ignited my interest) ...

... and later on ... after many chats exchanges, photos and bargaining ... for about $27 ... here I am with this thing. 

As usual, don't need it, but at least I've done my obligatory TEA ritual properly, that hopefully made TEA's GOD happy, and getting closer to the promised TEA heaven gate, am I ?   

Tear down photos coming next.

Here we go, tear down of the SMtechno SPT-5010A attached below.

All the manual and even the brochure are in Korean, none in English, had to use Google Translate. 

It has three transformers, the autotransformer (variac), smaller one in the middle for the auxiliary power for the control circuitry and finally the huge one for final step-up.

Any one have any idea what kind of HV plug type needed for the big white HV terminal ? Is that proprietary ?

Basically inside still looks very new and dust free, as it has no vent holes at all.

Sometimes they are custom made for the unit, we have an older Megger AC/DC unit at work which is completely useless because they didn't salvage the test leads with it when a department closed (now has disposable cardboard quality houses being built on it)  , the tests leads are now obsolete.

But that one looks to use a long insulated 4mm type, whether you can find a suitable generic HV test lead I don't know.

The Clare unit I acquired recently is a special with a factory fitted safe-block for the output (so you can just stuff the leads of the device under test in "bigclive" style). 
I'll try & add some pictures (when I get time) now I've been over to the strange unit to grab a picture of the unit, already took some of the inside a while ago.

The electronics lab at work had a Clare flash test unit with a large cabinet area with clear interlocked doors and smaller area with another interlocked clear panel, for putting the devices under test, the unit was 2.5kV AC version with ordinary 4mm sockets for use with any test leads and had a 60sec timer.

David

[tggzzz]

Any one have any idea what kind of HV plug type needed for the big white HV terminal ? Is that proprietary ?

Looks like you could fit a banana plug in there 

Like this? PTFE wire, but the spades are easily accessible, should Real Men feel bored at work that day.

[mansaxel]

Pukka - the real genuine article. Stolen Adopted from the Hindi पक्का.

I was going to mention the India connection too, but didn't feel I'd gotten enough data backing it to say so. Thanks.

I first stumbled on this excellent adjective in a little book I found in the Internet Archive, titled
"Sniping in France", by Major Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard, DSO, MC, that deals with the
art of industrial markmanship in trench warfare.  Obviously this is treated like a more dangerous
version of big game hunting. Good sport and all that.

Fascinating book.